


a slightly irregular banner family dinner

by livingtheobsessedlife



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence, Kid Fic, M/M, Post Infinity War, Post Thor ragnorak, Thor and Bruce live in a nice house with a nice kid and everybody’s happy okay, pta moms are jerks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-12-26 12:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18282749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livingtheobsessedlife/pseuds/livingtheobsessedlife
Summary: Fridays are Delilah’s favorite day of the week. Her Dada will bring her Uncles Steve and Tony home with him after a day of work downtown. They always bring a pizza or Burger King or whatever other fast foods are on the way home from the Tower.“Uncle Stevie!” Delilah squeals when they meet her where the bus drops her off. She takes a running start and leaps into his arm, waving happily to the other first graders as Steve carries her off to the Banner house. Bruce follows nervously after, a soft smile hidden under his bowed head.





	a slightly irregular banner family dinner

On Tuesdays, young Delilah Banner comes home demanding father’s specialty meatloaf. Thor always presents it with pride, and Bruce never lets on that he feeds his piece to the dog.

On Wednesdays, Delilah’s Dada likes to cook various foods he learned about from his travels. Sometimes she likes it, and sometimes Bruce has to stick some frozen fries in the oven because she refuses to eat the traditional pig stomach stew, but she always learns something new about a different culture, and Thor exults Bruce’s culinary talents even on the worst days.

Fridays are Delilah’s favorite day of the week though. Her Dada will bring her Uncles Steve and Tony home with him after a day of work downtown. They always bring a pizza or Burger King or whatever other fast foods are on the way home from the Tower.

“Uncle Stevie!” Delilah squeals when they meet her where the bus drops her off. She takes a running start and leaps into his arm. She waves happily to the other first graders as Steve carries her off to the Banner house. Bruce follows nervously after, a soft smile hidden under his bowed head.

When the trio storms the front door, Tony gives Delilah a noogie and a kiss on the cheek. Everybody pretends to ignore the matching kiss on the cheek he gives Steve, too.

“What’s for dinner, father?” Delilah demands as she bounds up to Thor in the kitchen.

Every week he makes the same lame joke, “You’re expecting food? When I was a kid we had to fight for our food! I should go make you tackle your Dada, see who wins, huh?”

The joke still goes over her head, but she doesn’t dwell on it anymore, just toddles on the balls of her feet and peers over the skyscraper-tall granite counter.

The five of them sit at the kitchen table with their fast food portioned out on ceramic plates, glasses full of Bruce’s favorite exotic juices. Tonight’s dinner features Kentucky Fried Chicken. Delilah sits excitedly on her knees in her chair, waiting for Uncle Tony and Bruce to find their way to the dinner table.

Steve turns his napkin into an origami bird for her in the meantime, and she crushes it minutely in her clumsy hands as she laughs. He smiles brightly down at her, a gentle little person-sized Hurricane.

Tony and Bruce finally make it to the dinner table. Their conversation is suspended mid-ramble, some complex physics equation on the tips of their tongue, and Tony grins, “Smells like we’re eating right tonight- right, Lila?”

Only her beloved Uncle Tony’s ever been allowed to call her Lila, a habit he managed to slip past her nickname-faring sensors after the continuous dazzling of science. Delilah certainly takes up after her dada, always easily distracted by Stark’s genius brain. Unfortunately, she’s seemed to adopted her other father’s ravenous appetite.

Delilah wields her fork and knife in her tiny hands like twin daggers, grinning innocently as the scientists meander into the room, “Hurry Up, Dada!” She says, pushing on the table excitedly, “I’m hungry!”

Tony feigns slow motion the rest of the way to his chair, and Bruce laughs, shaking his head nonetheless, “You washed your hands, right, girly?”

Delilah so much as rolls her eyes, “Of course, Dada. Can we eat now?”

“Dig in.”

Thor gives his daughter a big ol’ scoop of mashed potatoes, and she goades him into giving her extra gravy.

A hush falls over the five of them as they eat, Bruce and Tony interrupting the silence intermittently with science jargon that goes over the others’ heads (though in only a few years, Delilah will surely understand every word, she’s as smart as her dad).

“Delilah,” Steve says, taking a big gulp of Bruce’s papaya dragonfruit juice, “Did you learn anything at school today?”

Delilah screws her face up pensively, “We started reading a new book in read aloud, but I’ve already read it. My friend Mary is really excited to find out what happens next though, and I promised I wouldn’t tell her this time. I pinky promised.”

Steve’s confused, “But did you learn anything new?”

Delilah shakes her head, “Not really.”

Bruce and Thor share a look over the bucket of chicken. This has been an ongoing problem, Delilah’s smarter than her teachers are able to challenge her. They’ve been talking about it a lot lately, maybe setting something up with Tony or Peter Parker who’s been working with gifted kids in the city.

Suddenly, Delilah brightens, “Wait, Uncle Steve! I did learn something today!” Everybody at the table is surprised, hopeful, “Mary taught me how to play four scare at recess! Her cousin showed her how to play over the weekend. Now we can play when we’re outside, it’s really fun!”

Oh. Not what they were expecting, but at least it’s something.

Steve comes off as incredibly interested as Delilah explains all the rules in a very zigzag way, going back and forth and quoting all her friends. They all know there’s no way he’s actually interested, but he puts on a hell of a show for the sake of the second grader.

Mid-explanation about the rules of getting out in her new game, Delilah’s face falls and her thoughts trail off ubiquitously.  
“What’re you thinking about?” Steve asked her softly. Thor and Bruce and Tony gnawed on their chicken legs and pretended not to be listening in.

“Brenda said something today,” Delilah reports, brows furrowed in thought, “And it was weird. I asked if they wanted to come to my house and play four square with me and she said that her mommy wouldn’t let her come here because they’re afraid of what might happen. What does that mean?”

Tony chokes on a piece of chicken, Bruce suddenly has to pick his fork up off the ground, and Thor’s ramrod still. Steve usually knows how to deal with Delilah like it’s nothing, but this time he looks to Thor and Bruce for guidance.

Their pasts haven’t ever come up, so as far as Delilah knows her dada has always worked with Uncle Tony and her father and Uncle Steve have always run off on bimonthly unexplained business trips.

“Delilah?” Bruce asks very slowly, “Do you know that your father and I would protect you at any cost? Your uncles, too?”  
Delilah nods, still confused. Steve’s arms are crossed defiantly, poorly hiding the indignance he feels towards a certain ignorant mom.

“Well, some people don’t know that, honey,” Bruce continues solemnly, his voice soft.

“Why don’t they believe it, Dada?”

Bruce takes in an involuntary, sharp intake of breath, eyes dark as they sweep towards Thor whose big hands are twiddling anxiously on top of the table. That was the question they dreaded.

It’s not that they were never going to tell her. They were going to do it really, just when she was older and more capable of understanding the weight of what it meant to have two dads that moonlight as superheroes. Instead, they have to do it now. Thor shifts a hand over the back of Delilah’s chair as Bruce continues. Steve and Tony both look like they’re trying to make themselves invisible (an awkward feat for a Stark).

“You see, we- um- well, your father and I used to lead a very different life from this. Not bad necessarily, but more dangerous. We were very well known, and so your friend’s mom is probably just worried that something from our past might come back and hurt your friend.”

Delilah looks pensive again, “What did you do?”

“We were, um-“

“Superheros.” Steve finishes for him. It’s either out of pity, or he simply couldn’t sit by quietly anymore. Neither would surprise Bruce, but he’s just grateful he didn’t have to say it himself.

Delilah looks up at Thor with big eyes, “You too, father?”

“Yes, my little one,” Thor says, “I fought many villainous forces alongside your father and uncles.”

Slowly, she nods, “Okay, Dada. Can I have another piece of chicken?"

Bruce watches her for a moment, decides she isn’t repressing anything that she’ll need therapy for later, and passes the chicken, “Sure, honey bun,” He says, hesitating with his arm stretched over the table, “You’re sure you’re fine?”

Delilah smiles, “I’m hungry, Dada.”

And just like that it’s over and done: the concern and anxiety they’ve felt since the moment Delilah first appeared in their lives, that loaded conversation is finished off by the appetite of a seven year old.

Tony taps his foot on the ceramic tile of the kitchen, pushing his chair back with his legs and holding his arms out magnanimously, “Good thing then,” He says, “Because Stevie and I brought pie!”

Delilah’s eyes light up, and Bruce and Thor share a relieved look over the buffet of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Delilah skips after Uncle Tony to fetch the dessert. Everything is… okay.


End file.
